‘Well – I dunno. Some story about a baptismal register in a vestry. I didn’t listen.’

Alleyn asked her about the cigarette-case and she at once exhibited all the classic signs of a clumsy and unaccustomed liar. She changed colour, avoided his glance and again fondled the unenthusiastic Pekinese.

‘I didn’t notice anything about that,’ she said. ‘He’d got the case. I didn’t know he’d lost it. He’s an old fusspot anyway.’ The colour started out in blotches on her flattish cheeks. ‘He probably lost it himself,’ she said. ‘Muddling about.’

Alleyn said: ‘Miss Cartell, I’m sorry to badger you when you’ve had such a shock, but I’m sure you want to get this wretched business cleared up, don’t you?’

‘Don’t know,’ she countered. ‘Not if it’s going to lead to a lot of unpleasantness. Won’t bring poor old Boysie back, will it?’

Alleyn disregarded this. ‘Your adopted niece and a friend of hers, called Mr Leiss, were at the luncheon, weren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ she said, staring at him. She seemed to be in two minds whether to go on. Then she said: ‘You don’t want to pay any attention to what P.P. says about them. He’s out of touch with the young. Expects them to behave like his generation; and a lot of pie-faced little humbugs they were, if you like.’

‘Was there some talk of Mr Leiss buying a car?’

She bent over the dog. ‘That’s enough,’ she said to it. ‘You’ve had enough.’ And then to Alleyn: ‘It all petered out. He didn’t buy it.’

The door opened and her Austrian maid came in with a letter.

‘From Mr Period, please,’ she said. ‘The man left it.’

Miss Cartell seemed unwilling to take the letter. The maid put it on the desk at her elbow.

‘All right, Trudi,’ Miss Cartell mumbled. ‘Thank you,’ and the maid went out.

‘Pay no attention to me,’ Alleyn said.

‘It’ll wait.’

‘Don’t you think, perhaps, you should look at it?’

She opened the letter unhandily and as she read it turned white to the lips.

‘What is it?’ he asked, ‘Miss Cartell, what’s the matter?’

The letter was still quivering in her hands.

‘He must be mad,’ she said. ‘Mad!’

‘May I see it?’

She seemed to consider this but in an aimless sort of way as if she only gave him half her attention. When he took the sheet of paper from her fingers she suffered him to do so as if they were inanimate.

Alleyn read the letter.

‘My dear: What can I say? Only that you have lost a devoted brother and I a very dear friend. I know so well, believe me so very well, what a shock this has been for you and how bravely you will have taken it. If it is not an impertinence in an old friend to do so, may I offer you these few simple lines written by my dear and so Victorian Duchess of Rampton? They are none the worse, I hope, for their unblushing sentimentality.